What you say just might not be what they hear!

Good communication is a skill that is very necessary for me to do my job as broker.  Not only do I have to communicate with customers and clients, but the agents in my office, agents and brokers outside my office, my advertising vendors, attorneys, loan officers, home inspectors, my IT guy... the list goes on and on.

Last evening when my husband called to say he was on his way home from work and would be stopping off at the store it was my daughter who took the call.  She's at her first "big girl" job interview right now as I type. (you know the job that comes with benefits) She, like her mother, has never been much of a morning person.  So she asked Donald to pick her up a "Green Monster".  What she meant was a Green Monster Energy Drink, but that is not what she said and not what he heard.

When he came in with what looked like a tiny cousin of baby bop (come on you've watched Barney you know who baby bop is).... I asked.  What is that?  His reply was, "It's the green monster Abigail asked for.  She wasn't asleep yet, so gave her her "green monster"  He also really got her the energy drink for this morning so she was amused.  Had he only brought home the "green monster" seen right and NOT the green monster seen left I am not sure that world war III would not have started right inside my house.

It's not unlike that in the real estate business as well, communication is essential between agents and clients.  How many times have you heard... "That's not what I meant."  And in our clients/customers defense, yes, we should treat them like they are our only client and we should make sure we ask questions to clarify we understand exactly what they mean when they tell us something or even email us something.  Because as you can see, it's not always just about the right words, sometimes it's about the right meaning of the words.

For example today one of my agents showing property had a client say... "that house was entirely too small" but her only requirement was 3 Bedrooms and 2 baths.  Bedrooms come in a variety of sizes.  An empty nester or young couple with no children may well be satisfied with a 10x10 size for the second and third bedrooms while someone with teenagers may really need more along the lines of 12x14 for those same two bedrooms.  So every 3 Bedroom, 2 bath home wouldn't work for the family wanting the larger sized additional bedrooms.  And in the Lake Sinclair area the term "good water" is open to opinion.  My opinion is "good" water is 5 feet of water depth at the end of the dock.  I recently had a client that had the opinion that "good" water was a view a half mile long.  We had to communicate to understand each other and we had to know not only the words, but the expectations of the client who is using those words to describe the home they want to buy.

So when you do business with Lane Realty when it feels like you are getting "grilled" because we have so many questions, please remember we have to know what you are really looking for to be able to serve you better.  So we may ask a LOT of questions.  But in the end, we'd like to hear a "Yes" when we ask if you were happy with our service and would recommend us to your family and friends.